No one would sign me, because I didn’t fit any business models, and probably couldn’t sell 500 records. But I was no stranger to self-publishing my own music. Yet the idea of running my own label always seemed extremely complicated and expensive. Until I decided to just go for it. Limited editions was all I could afford to do, but I found out I could copyright the music and make a second edition whenever I could afford to. Even if I haven’t made second editions of anything yet, it felt good to know that. It never made sense to me to make 500 copies of anything. I’ve heard from other Label-people, like Martin of Rabalder Records (see my entry on Rabalder Radio and Records) and Matias from Halshugga that it takes extremely long to sell, and they had to look at big piles of the same record for many years. It seemed this was a fate to be avoided, so I decided that my first release would be thirty home-dubbed spoken-word cassettes. But what would I call my label? I was soon to find out.

​ As I was walking to the post office a Summer afternoon in 2016, I found a small laminated note with a pictogram and the word “Stilletid” (Silent Time). I’ve since been told that those types of notes are often used in schools for kids with Autism or Asperger’s, to pin on their shirt, so they can tell it is time to be silent, I guess. My theory is now, that one of those children had thrown it away, so he could get a few more minutes of noise in.

Anyway, I thought it would be a cool label name, and I could use the pictogram as a logo. My first cassette sold pretty quickly, and I scraped together enough cash to do an LP. Limited to just 50 copies, it took just a few months to sell. Thus there was cash in the Stilletid piggy-bank to do another one. Again just 50 Copies. At this time I had a few returning costumers on Bandcamp, who wanted every record and tape I released, but tapes didn’t seem to be as profitable anymore. Yet I kept making tapes too, because I love them. And that is what you have to reason it with. It is because you love it. It won’t ever be worth it. And in the end what I have learned from the Stilletid-experience, and what I want to advice anyone starting a label to do is this. Release whatever music that you’re the proudest of. The proudest of creating, or if someone else created it, the proudest of releasing. But be sure that you are realistic and don’t end up with 300 vinyl singles sitting under your bed.​ What most of us do, there simply isn’t a huge audience for. Most of us have, as Frank Zappa said “no commercial potential”. Which is good. The best music isn’t mass-produced. It’s real, heartfelt, and sometimes even ugly. But when you think about that for a second, the greatest things in life are ugly. Love is ugly. Sex is ugly. Truth is beauty, even if it is ugly. A lot of people don’t want truth in their music. They just want maple syrup poured in their ears. Which is fine. We will do just fine without them.

When I first started putting out releases, in 2008, I had initially wanted to press them on vinyl, but the minimum (here in the states at the time) was 500, something I could not afford financially and, to me, 500 was/is a LOT for someone that didn't have any friends or music scene connections at the time...

I went ahead and put out 2 releases on cassette, both limited to 100, which I figured was more than enough. It took me over 5 years to finally get rid of the last remaining copies.

The name of my "house venue" is called "Nullis Pretii" which was taken from the first Mothers of Invention LP. It translates to "no commercial potential" and is more of a self-deprecating joke on the types of shows that I book.

That sucks you had such a high minimum. Luckily cassettes are your friend in this case! The minimum overhere just recently rose to 100 at most plants. Also if you shop within europe, its not expensive to import, and often you don’t have to pay import within europe at all. I also heard about the atrocious prices you have to pay to mail thibgs outside the US. What is craziest is that when I send you something it is about half the price of You sending me something! It seems like theres a bias on americans from. Well , other americans going on hæhæ!

Reply

Little Fyodor

4/20/2018 13:22:16

At its heart, I think "no commercial potential" is what this is all about. Well, or at least not caring about commercial potential but wanting to share one's music and hear others' in the same boat anyway. (For whatever myriad known or unknown reasons one may have for doing that.) And maybe also about making friends with people doing this, but there are other ways to make friends, it's this activity we have in common that makes us want to be friends.

Hey Fyodor, my friend that i made through our mutual no commercial potential! I stopped getting email notifications for some reason, so i did’nt know you commented! Indeed you are correct about this, regerding making the music, but also in a more extreme way, regarding releasing it. If you make a label like stilletid, you WILL lose money, thats just the way it is

Reply

Leave a Reply.

Ditlev Buster

Butter Cookies

​Ditlev Buster has released music on LP, CD, CD-R ,​7” EP and Cassette on his label Stilletid since 2008 .

​He has been making music, noise, and participating in the art and audio underground for much longer than that, but mostly keeping his work to himself before 2008.​Ditlev’s column is mostly concentrated on a Danish perspective on underground art and what is going on around him, but that doesn't exclude people from elsewhere that he happens to run into on the street or in a bar.

Archives

ELECTRONIC COTTAGE is an international community where independent artists, musicians, writers and freethinkers can meet and share ideas, sounds, visual art, photos, zines, videos, reviews, news and info, opinions, tech and gear articles, and much more, all in the spirit of two-way communication.EC draws inspiration from the Cassette Culture Revolution of the 1980s, 90s and beyond; Mail Art, Small Press and Zines, Dada, Fluxus, Punk Rock, Hacking, Circuit Bending, Anarchy, and Noise.EC values inclusion, democracy, experimentation, independence and freedom of thought and expression, open-minded exchange, and Community.